Greenfly and shed skins on a chilli plant

6 tips on how to spot greenfly

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Greenfly, a menace to all, and particularly to chilli growers. Greenfly not only spread disease and drain a plant of its energy they often damage the fruit too. But how do you find them in the early days before they take hold and decimate your plants? Here are 6 tips for early detection.

1/ Look in the new shoots. Although they are commonly found on the underside of leaves, early in the year before the sun gets hot, they get into the tender new shoots where they damage flowers and leaf growth while the are still forming, so look there first.

2/ Use a magnifying glass or zoom in with your phone camera. It is so much easier to find and kill two or 3 today than 300 a week from now. In the picture below you can clearly see two fatties tucked into the new leaves plus a couple of smaller ones. The scars from their bite marks will cause the leaves to be contorted.

Early greenfly infestation on chilli plant

Early greenfly infestation on chilli plant

 

3/ When the sun gets hotter they seem to take shelter. This is when you start to find them lower down the plant among the shady lower leaves. Look for the white shed skins, they are often the most obvious sign of a greenfly infestation.

 

Greenfly and shed skins on a chilli plant

Greenfly and shed skins on a chilli plant

 

4/ Look for twisted shoots as they emerge, this almost always  a sign of greenfly, not some other disease. The greenfly that caused the problem may have long since been eaten by predators, but it is best to give the tip a spray with an organic insecticide to be on the safe side.

 

Greenfly causing twisted leaf growth on a chilli plant

Greenfly causing twisted leaf growth on a chilli plant

5/ Look inside newly forming flowers, if the greenfly get hold before you stop them they will scar the flower tissue and this results in bent and badly formed fruit, more on that here. As soon as the bud starts to open they will get inside. A quick spray with a soapy organic insecticide should do the job, or there are lots in there you should nip the flower off and scrap it. There is no point in allowing the plant to put its energy into growing a malformed fruit, there will be plenty of other flowers.

6/ Look for white shed skins in spider webs or on the soil around the plant. This is the tell tale sign that greenfly are lurking on the leaves above. The shed skins are often mistakenly diagnosed as white-fly when they are just empty skins shed as the greenfly fatten ready to give birth to the next generation.

When can my chilli plants go outside?

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Let’s be honest, unless you live in a Mediterranean or tropical climate, you will, like me and millions of other chilli growers, be looking to put plants outdoors as soon as you can because your window, conservatory, polytunnel, or whatever, is never big enough to house all of your chili plants. It is never big enough because we always grow too much, it’s a bad habit.

I grow too much, I don’t need as many as I grow, I give them away, which brings me joy, but still I end up with an overflowing greenhouse and want to move them out into the elements as soon as I can.

So… When is it safe to do it and what special care should you take?

Remember, especially it the UK, it is always a compromise, they will never do as well as they would in the shelter of a greenhouse, but follow these guidelines to give your plants the best chance possible.

1/ My book has loads about temperatures, but just to summarise – If they go below about 18°c they won’t grow (some need even higher temperatures). You needn’t worry about them getting too hot. Even UK record high temperatures will make them jump for joy. Look at the forecast and judge accordingly, they can go cooler at night, but keep an eye on both daytime and night-time temperatures. For me this is, and it is the same most years, about the beginning of May through to early September.

2/ Think about bringing them indoors at night or in cold weather. They will benefit from this protection. It doesn’t matter if you put them in a dark corner, or even a garage, it is night time anyway.

3/ Try and only move established plants outside. Pot on your seedlings into their big pots but let them get established before they go outside. Tender small plants are more likely to get bashed by the wind and rain.

4/ Use big pots, these will keep moisture levels more balanced in drying winds and when the plants get bigger they won’t blow over. They also store heat during the daytime which keeps the roots warm at night.

4/ Protect them from the elements – Put them in sheltered warm spots, try and shelter them from wind as much as possible with trellis or other plants, anything to stop them being bashed.

5/ Stake the plants – Wind causes so many problems, in particular the constant swaying movement which loosens the stem at the base and tears at the roots. Also, use small sticks to support branches when the plants get bigger. Wind is your enemy.

6/ Don’t assume that rain is enough to keep them watered. I can’t emphasise this enough. Think about when you water a plant, you probably give it about 1/2 an inch at least. Very rarely do we have that amount of rain in the summer, especially on a daily basis. A light shower will get the surface wet, but it won’t reach the roots. Also, when they are kept against a wall they may be in a ‘rain shadow’; everything else nearby gets wet, but they get nothing.

7/ Too much rain can be a problem too. During we periods remove any trays from beneath pots so they aren’t sitting in water. If there is a storm forecast, then try and bring them into somewhere sheltered.

8/ Keep feeding them! Outside plants need all the help they can get, and regular feeding will keep the roots healthy and help them withstand the drying effects of wind. Use chilli plant feed or standard tomato feed.

A Miserable Chilli Plant

A fairly miserable, poorly fed and bashed chilli plant. (A deliberate experiment!)

8/ Move pots around regularly to search for slugs and snails hidden beneath. Look in the holes in the bottom of pots too. For small plants particularly this will be the biggest and most immediate threat the their existence.

9/ Holidays – If you entrust their care to a neighbour and you only have a few plants, they might get better care if you carry them round to their garden rather than making the neighbour come to you. Reward your neighbour with plenty of chillies, they might get hooked too. Alternatively consider planting them in a self watering system, more expensive, but at least it guarantees they are watered and fed for up to 2 weeks while you are away.

10/ Choose the right varieties – Be realistic, habaneros, scotch bonnets, and most of the super hot chillies need higher temperatures than our climate will give, and a longer growing season too, they really won’t do well outside unless you wait till they are fully grown, and you might not have the space for that. Stick to varieties that grow quickly or withstand harsher weather, Hungarian Wax are picked early, Bulgarian Carrot are very tough, and reasonably hot, Aji (Capsicum baccatum) varieties are also very resilient, with woody stems and small leaves. Apache F1 is nearly always foolproof as it is so quick and also compact, or for something hot and brightly coloured try Twilight.

Slug

Slugs & Snails the 2016 Battle

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My battle with slugs and snails is something that is close to my heart. Whilst I hate them with a passion there would be a gap in my life if they disappeared forever. This is an unlikely scenario, they are more likely to take over the world, and when they do I will be sent to the Hague to be tried for crimes against slugmanity, and there is no way I could argue my innocence.

Despite warnings in the media that our mild winter would mean the worst ever summer for slugs and snails, this doesn’t seem to have happened, yet. We had a cold snap recently, which was mostly charaterised by dry freezing northerly winds, so this maybe killed off a lot of the population at just the time they would be poking their noses out.

So last night, rather late in the year, was my first big slug hunt. Temperature 14.5°c at 9pm following a day of rain showers, this definitely demanded action. They breed like rabbits, and every one that wasn’t killed last night will produce 10 million by August, or something like that. So I left no corner of the garden unexplored. I have seen much worse, in fact I was pleasantly surprised, but I still had a job to do. The veg patch was pretty clear, mainly due to ‘good garden hygiene’, i.e. no old pots and rubbish lying around for them to hide under. Not so the rest of the garden, under the lilies by the cat’s graveyard there were plenty. I’m not sure what type of lillies, you can’t eat them so they are of limited interest to me, I only go there to kill slugs.

These days I mostly use what I call the ‘double tap’, named after the special forces method of shooting someone. One smash or slice with a trowel, then a quick flick to toss the remains into the shrubbery, a bit like the sport of hurling. I don’t want their rotting remains on the lawn, nor do I want to see their carcasses being eaten by their hungry brothers and sisters the following evening. There is more of this in a slightly more serious piece on slugs, what they eat and how to control them here.

Snail

Snail on Chilli Plant

The final tally was about 40 slugs and 55 snails and there weren’t many big fat Spanish slugs, which is good news. I have done much much worse in my evening rampages and I will continue this fight over the next few nights before I can sleep easily, but this isn’t victory, I will never win.

 

 

Chilli Seedlings - From the book 'Growing Chillies'

How cold will my chilli plants go?

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We had some unseasonably cold weather in the UK recently, and where I live near the south coast of Devon frosts at the end of April are almost unheard of. But we had some all the same, and it caused a few problems. For me it wasn’t so much the night time lows, but the general cold, when the sun wasn’t out greenhouse temperatures during the day were too cool for plants to grow quickly, so everything is behind.

There were a few touch and go nights though, and towards the end of April I had just too many plants to bring indoors, so they had to run the gauntlet of some near freezing temperatures.

The lowest my max/min thermometer read was -1°c in the greenhouse, but don’t take this as definite. Have you ever browsed the range of thermometers available in a garden centre? Have a close look, last time I bought one the readings on all the thermometers on offer ranged from 18 to 21°c, and they were all hanging from the same shelf! I bought an average one, but there is no telling how accurate it really is. I suspect the temperature didn’t quite reach as low as -1°c, or if it did it wasn’t for very long, maybe only 15 minutes before dawn.

So did my plants survive? Yes, they all did, (not so the courgettes planted outside). And what does this tell us about the lowest temperatures young chilli plants can endure?

My experience tells me that as long as there is no cold wind or rain blowing directly against the plants, which means they need to be in a greenhouse not outdoors, and as long as the cold temperatures only go on for an hour or two, then the air temperature can go down to just 2 or 3°c and still recover happily, but who wants to gamble on a couple of degrees this way or that? And remember this is far from desirable, they aren’t actually growing at these temperatures, as they would if they were bottoming out at 19°c, so warmer is always better.

Another factor that can seriously jeapordise the well being of small tender plants is how quickly they warm up. Generally the soil in their posts will retain a little heat to insulate the roots. The plant might wilt slightly when it draws down fluids into the roots as a reaction against the cold. When the sun suddenly starts to warm the greenhouse then the wilting leaves can’t transpire quick enough to offset the rapidly increasing temperature and the drooping leaves shrivel. In the past I have seen chilli plants looking healthy before sun-up, but two hours later they have died. This is a particular problem where a greenhouse is sheltered from the rising sun and remains cold until later in the morning when suddenly the strong sun peeps over nearby buildings or trees and the temperature rises from nothing to 30°c in a matter of seconds, rather than a gradual warming as the sun rises. This is why instructions on constructing greenhouses always tell you to site it somewhere away from such situations.

Finally, of course, different varieties react differently, tepin, most Capsicum pubescens, (so rocoto), and many aji varieties will be slightly more tolerant than others.

 

 

 

8 tips on keeping your young chilli plants at the right temperature

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One of the best things you can do to make sure your plants grow at optimum speed is to look after the temperature and try to give them constant warmth. In the spring time this can be difficult, but here are a few tips as to how you can do your best to keep temperatures high, and consistent.

Plants aren’t human, they don’t have feelings and moods. They are simply a load of chemicals jumbled together, and each type of plant has it’s own slightly different composition, which is why some like damp, some like dry, some like heat and some cold. High temperatures are a big part of what makes chilli plants grow, and when the temperature is right for them, they grow, and when it isn’t they don’t. Look at weeds in the hedgerows, one week nothing, next week a foot high. You want your chillies to go from an inch to a foot quickly, so let’s get the temperature right.

For optimum growth rates you should be aiming for a constant 27-31°c during the day, and slightly lower at night, say 23-26°c. At these temperatures your chilli plants will almost grow before your eyes, and maybe two or 3 times the rate of something kept at ‘room temperature’ with a bit of extra sunshine during the day.  Put simply, they will grow when the temperature is right, and stop when it isn’t, so any extra time or money you can spend on maximising this growing period will be rewarded with better results.

Chilli in black pots

  1. Firstly, and probably most importantly; remember, half the plant is roots, so soil temperature is at least as important as air temperature.
  2. A heated propagator – For germination and for young plants this is the easiest way to keep them warm. When they have germinated and are growing nicely, you can remove the lid and the warm tray will continue to keep the roots warm.
  3. Soil warming cable – For a larger number of plants, and if you can afford the luxury, then this is the best way of optimising soil temperatures to grow your plants as quickly as possible. It means you need a big sunny window if not a lovely greenhouse, with a big tray or specially constructed bench, a purpose bought warming cable, some insulation and some sand or inert substrate. Then you can thermostatically control the temperature of the roots of your plants accurately.
  4. Let sunshine get to the pot – When sunshine is hard to come by arrange your pots so they get the maximum benefit. If they are in a position where the side of the pot is exposed to direct sunlight, then the warming effects of the sun will mean the pot and therefore the roots are warmer than the surrounding air.
  5. Use black pots rather than the traditional red ones. These are often cheaper and they absorb the heat of the sun more.
  6. Bigger pots – there is no harm in potting small seedlings straight into their final big pots, the big volume of soil acts as a heat sink to keep roots warm long after the sun has disappeared. It also stops the big temperature fluctuations that small pots suffer from. Beware – if big pots are kept in a cold place and never get a chance to warm up, then the opposite will happen.
  7. Move them around! – The simplest job is sometimes the hardest as it involves time and effort. Put them in the greenhouse or the sunny window during the day and move them into a warm room at night. The more you keep them at their optimum temperature, the more time they will spend growing.
  8. Hydroponics – This is a more expensive alternative than traditional pot growing, but once you have made the initial investment of time and money the rewards will be higher with quicker growing plants, bigger plants and ultimately more chillies. Depending on your setup, the root temperature, and possibly that of the whole plant, are thermostatically controlled. Top this with the perfect nutrient mix and you will be way ahead of the competition.

Remember there is more to it than just heat, you need to juggle all of these tips with lots of lovely bright light too.

 

 

 

I wish plant sellers would get it right

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I wish plant growers would get it right. I saw this in my local garden centre; they took the trouble to make a special label with the name Paper Lantern, but the picture, maybe some kind of Italian long sweet pepper, is almost as far from a paper lantern as you could possibly get. How misleading for new chilli growers is that?

2016-04-08-11.03.46.jpg.jpeg

For anyone interested in what a paper lantern really looks like, here is a picture of one.

Paper Lantern Cropped

 

Overwintering Chilli Plants – Some practical examples

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The overwintering of chilli plants, in temperate areas anyway, is probably the most variable and uncertain part of chilli growing. The most detailed advice is, at best, to be taken with a pinch of salt as there are so many more variables to think about when you compare overwintering with, say, germination. How warm is the autumn? how cold is the winter? where are they kept? what variety? How long are the daylight hours?

So rather than dispensing general advice, which I, and many others have done before, I will illustrate some practical examples of what has happened to some of my experimental plants this winter. For a little bit about what happened to some of my plants back in the autumn you can link to the blog entry ‘When Will My Chilli Plants Die?’.

Where I live near the coast of  south Devon in the UK, we have had what is, so far, undoubtedly the mildest winter ever, so I still have a few plants that would not normally survive. This is as good as it gets, and things haven’t been great, so this illustrates the general advice that you should bring any plants that you want to keep into the house where they stand a very good chance of survival. The hardier of my plants were busy fruiting in my greenhouse until Christmas. Up until that point we had only two mornings when there was frost on the ground, and even then the greenhouse temperature only dropped to 3c. Often temperatures were 15 or 16°C and not far of that at night times. It was really really dull and wet though, so I wasn’t hopeful for some plants that I left outside.

Through January temperatures were still warm, and it is only in the last couple of weeks that we have had consistently lower temperatures, but still the greenhouse hasn’t dropped to lower than 1°C.

Despite the warm early winter I am still not surprised to see that most of the plants I tried to overwinter in the greenhouse or outside are looking doomed. There are a few which will survive, but 4 months of short days and just a couple of months of cool temperatures have still mounted up so that only the real hardy ones will live on.

 

Rocoto, overwintered in cool greenhouse

Rocoto, overwintered in cool greenhouse, pretty good.

I had little doubt that this rocoto would survive, they are pretty hardy and this one wasn’t pruned back till January, and at the end of February it is still looking nice and green. It is in a smallish pot in the greenhouse.

 

 

 

 

Rocoto overwintered in vegetable patch. Very dead!

This rocoto, above, wasn’t as lucky. It was very much an experiment, it grew well outside in a vegetable patch protected by climbing beans all around, but the wet soil and a battering by the wind means it is unlikely to shoot out again this year.

 

Rocoto overwintered outdoors in pot,

Rocoto overwintered outdoors in pot.

This 3rd rocoto was overwintered outside the greenhouse in a large pot, it is looking pretty good, the stems all nice and green, the soil drains easily and I hope it will shoot out in the spring. I will move it into a greenhouse to give it a kick start.

Rocotos are generally one of the safest bets when it comes to overwintering. The others that do well are the baccatums, ajis, and some of these have done OK in the greenhouse.

 

Aji in greenhouse

Aji. overwintered in greenhouse

Aji. overwintered in greenhouse

The botton aji limon is looking green and healthy, but the one above is dead at the main stem, so I am not hopeful for this one, I think the main stem will rot down and cause the plant to die.

Piri piri, overwintered, good and healthy.

Piri piri, overwintered, good and healthy.

Finally, this is one of my old faithful piri piri plants. This is its second winter, it will stand colder than anything thrown at it so far and I am confident it will do well again this year. The stems are still green up to about 1m high and I have only pruned the straggly small stems to keep it in shape. It is in a big pot, which keeps the roots insulated against sudden drops in temperature, and it is under glass.

I started off hanging on to other plants, either to see which was the first to go, or to test out some new ones. I have never overwintered Carolina reaper before, so I tried that. In the house is OK, but a couple in the greenhouse died back quite quickly. Likewise various annuums they didn’t do well in the greenhouse either and are already in the bin. I wouldn’t normally try keeping these anyway, things like jalapenos don’t perform as well in their second year as newly seeded ones, but as October and November were so mild I hung onto a few.

This last one was an annuum that I did secretly hope would survive, as it would have been great to see it shoot out early. It is a pimento de Padron, and was nearly 2m high in a greenhouse bed, but I’m not sure if it will grow again, watch this space.

Pimiento de Padron overwintered in a greenhouse bed

Pimiento de Padron overwintered in a greenhouse bed

 

Chilli Seeds

How long does it take for chilli seeds to germinate?

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This is one of the most common questions novice growers ask; rarely are the answers detailed enough, and often they are misleading. The most common problem is when seed merchants give a very broad ballpark estimate of 2-6 weeks or something similar, covering their backs for any eventuality thereby mismanaging peoples expectations.

The reality is that most chilli seeds should germinate within 14 days, some of them much sooner. The quickest I have ever found are senor serrano, a modern commercial variety of serrano, in good conditions they will be emerging within 4 days. A lot of commercial jalapeno varieties aren’t far behind this, and I’d say the average is around 10 days across the board if conditions are perfect.

Chilli Seeds

The exceptions are often the super hot things, especially bhut jolokia and nagas, they are very erratic and often take longer, but again there are instances where they will pop up within 10 days or so, though this is less likely as they are more particular about moisture and temperature and it is more difficult to get things spot on. The more recent super hots, like Trinidad scorpions and Carolina reapers are less fussy.

The other exceptions, according to my non scientific experimentation is anything brown, by which I mean chocolate habanero, mulato, pasilla etc. There are many times where I deliberately set these to germinate next door to each other, or even in the same pot, and they have under-performed when compared to their standard relatives, e.g. mulato v ancho, or chocolate habanero v orange habanero. This is strange as ancho and habanero aren’t even the same species, but maybe the genetic variation that causes brown-ness also weakens germination, not for me to say without some proper tests.

Notwithstanding a dubious seed supply, or seed which has been poorly stored, if your seeds aren’t as quick as I have suggested above, then there is likely to be a problem with the way you are germinating them. Don’t despair, things will still happen, but be aware that your conditions probably aren’t perfect, so next time try something a bit different. You might have to buy a book to get all the details on what to do and what not to do :), at least now you know what you are aiming for.

Barra do Ribiero

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This is a new one for me, this year is the first time I have grown it, but I’m really pleased. It is a Capsicum baccatum from Brazil so I assume it originates from the area of the same name. In appearance the plant looks very much like the more common aji limo/limon varieties with long bendy tough stems and small leaves. In a reasonable sized pot the plant grows to about 45cm high, and at least that in width once the fruit starts to weigh down the stems.

Barra do Ribiero, Brazillian chilli pepper

The taste is similar to an aji limon, sharp and citrussy, but the difference with this one is that the fruit is very fleshy and juicy, more reminiscent of a miniature rocoto. Although the whole thing is pretty hot, I’d say about 40,ooo SHU, you can easily slice off a piece of flesh for juicy munch without getting any heat at all. For this reason I think it is going to make a delicious sauce, the flesh should break down easily and you can control the heat by taking out the bitty seeds.

On top of this, Barra do Ribiero is beautiful to look at, each one is a firm and glossy heart shape. they start yellow, then go through a part purple stage before ripening to red. The first few I picked in early September, but the bulk weren’t ready till the end of that month,

Barra do Ribiero bowl 4 web

This was an easy one to grow, like most Capsicum baccatum varieties it is tough and resilient, I’d say it will toddle on into the winter in my greenhouse, still producing slowly, and should overwinter well. The seeds germinated easily, they came from Nicky’s Nursery. I have a good crop from 4 plants, and I’m going to have a go at everything with them, some I have dried, slicing them open first. Some I have frozen, and some I will make sauce with.

Barra do Ribiero Sliced close web

Chilhuacle Negro Chilli

Chilhuacle Negro

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This unusual chilli, the chilhuacle negro, deserves a page of its own. It is a favourite of mine for a number of reasons; firstly its strange soft, brown, leathery feel is fairly unique, and secondly it looks quite spectacular when growing because of the shape of the plant.

Chilhuacle Negro Chillies

The fruits are about 4-5 cm cubed and ripen from green to brown, but they never firm up to that glossy, crunchy state that you would normally expect of a chilli. Instead they remain pliant and leathery with dull skin, as though they have been left on the plant too long and have started to dry out.

Chilhuacle Negro Sliced

Chilhuacle Negro Sliced

Linked to these characteristics is the ease with which they can be dried, in fact they already feel like half the job of drying is done before you pick them. They are naturally low in moisture, and with the matt skin, to completely dry them out is much easier compared to many other chillies.

Chilhuacle negro originate from the Oaxaca region of Mexico and are traditionally used dried, in a mole negro. They impart ‘dark flavours’, chocolate, tobacco and tannin and they aren’t that hot, maybe 2-3000 SHU, so you can safely use enough to make the most of these flavours without overdoing the heat.

Chilhuacle Negro Chilli

Chilhuacle Negro Chilli

The plants, which grow to about 45 cm x 45 cm make quite a spectacle, and become laden with fruit, but remain compact. The stems branch frequently, with short inter-nodal length and quite unusually the stems can grow downwards, not bending over, but actually branching with strong stems growing down beneath the top of the pot. This gives the plant the appearance of a mesh globe, which, when combined with lots of brown fruit becomes quite decorative.

Chilhuacle Negro Plant Above Web

Chilhuacle Negro On Plant

If you want to have a go at growing them you can get seeds in the UK from Nicky’s Nursery they are quite hard to come by otherwise. They germinate quite well, as I have often found, with no scientific evidence at all, that many brown chillies are more erratic than their red counterparts (chocolate habs, ancho mulato for example). Once the seeds have germinated the fruit take around 16 weeks to mature to brown and they are always eager to keep producing into the autumn.

One thing I found this year, and I mentioned this in a previous blog, https://growingchilliesbook.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/the-order-of-greenfly/ is that they seem to have attracted greenfly where other plants around them did not. There were a few chilhuacle negro plants scattered randomly around the greenhouse, and yet they all seemed to get infected where the neighbours remained greenfly-free. The early greenfly which noshed into the flower parts before I noticed them, caused a lot of the first fruit to be quite deformed. Maybe this is partly due to the strange dry and leathery nature of the chilhuacle negro fruit, but some of the affected ones not only divided, but the skins split open so you could see the seeds inside. Needless to say I had to pick these and discard them as soon as they started to grow to make way for some healthy un-greenflied fruit.